All my life I have considered myself a very faithful person. My parents raised me with the knowledge of Jesus Christ and with the Mass as a very important part of my upbringing. In grade school I was often teased and called "Jesus Boy" for always wanting to do the right thing. And in high school I joined my church's youth group so that I could strengthen my relationship with Christ through the fellowship of other Catholics. Yet I always wanted more! When ever I would go to Mass I wanted more opportunities to fall in love with Jesus... but each time I left feeling more enriched by the Eucharist than anything else. For me it appeared that after the 1960's, Mass had kinda lost its strength as it once did. It even seemed as though even the priests weren't taking their calling seriously anymore. The Church herself was suffering and I could see it!
It was in high school that I got a real eye-opener when my teacher in my "Christian Ethics" class had each of us attend Mass at different churches around the Minneapolis area. The first Mass I had to attend was at a church called St. Agnes where they celebrated the Mass in Latin. I was instantly in love! The reverence, the music, the whole atmosphere was everything that I had been looking for! This was the Mass that the Saints back in the day would die for!! This was the Mass that was persecuted for its undeniable reverence for Our Lord being truly present in the Eucharist! This was the Mass that the Apostles had received from Jesus Himself!!
The next Mass I had to go to was at another church called St. Joan of Arc's and oh my... I will also never forget that experience either! Their Mass was held in their gymnasium, and there was no sign of the priest anywhere until a man who wasn't wearing a collar or vestments suddenly stood up with his cup of coffee and said, "Well let's begin!" It wasn't until later that I realized that was the priest, when he finally put on his vestments for consecration. I was horrified! The readings were taken out of a magazine, and a woman came up and gave a homily on a paganistic idea about how "mother earth birthed us from her womb!" It was so extremely appalling!! Many of the other Masses we had to go to after that were quite typical of what I was used to for Mass around town, but after that Latin Mass at St. Agnes, something clued me in to the fact that there is still something very great about the Mass that was being hidden. By the time I got to college, my interest in the Holy Mass had peeked, and my search had begun to find what Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had called the "hidden treasure of the Church" in the world! Sunday after Sunday I would attend Mass at the local parish on campus that was run by the Jesuit order. The order that St. Ignacius himself started so as to help bring Protestants back into the Church after the Reformation. Yet from one Mass to the next, I was experiencing the same thing... nothing! And soon once the war on terror started, all I ever heard at Mass was a political sermon! I finally got to the point where my sister and I begged my Grandparents to take me to the church that they always went to! And it was there that I found the Latin Mass being offered again! Finally Sunday after Sunday I was beginning to feel my spiritual life getting stronger and stronger! My love for Jesus and His Church becoming more and more!! And even my knowledge of the faith even becoming more and more complete! Ah yes, this was it! This was the Mass of the Saints in Heaven!! This was the Mass that made sinners into Saints!
It was at the Latin Mass that I began to see young boys wanting to serve! And no longer would I hear them say, "I want to be a fireman when I grow up" I was hearing them say instead, "I want to be a priest! I want to be a monk!" I was told so often that the Church was struggling with a shortage of priests, but here they were in the Latin Mass springing forth like a wildfire! Many I had heard say, "If they want to add more priests to the priesthood, they should allow priests to marry or even allow women to be priests!" But from this I could see, that was not the answer at all! What these young boys needed was a good example of a priest! A priest who believed what he preached and preached what he believed! A priest who would be a true father-figure to his church and guide them on the right path. I priest who wouldn't be afraid of stepping on toes or refusing communion to someone who came in with a bunch of facial piercings and expected it to be okay! No! This was the Mass! This was Mass of Jesus Christ! The Mass of the same God who told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the same God who wipped out the sinful people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and cast out the thieves and money changers in the temples in Jerusalem! The same God, Jesus Christ who died for us on a cross and shed His blood for many so that sins may be forgiven! It was clear this was the Mass!
However now-a-days, people who attend the Latin Mass are viewed as those who are against Vatican II. As I have posted before, Vatican II had a lot of errors in it, and many of the documents of Vatican II were left open to interpretation, which has caused so much confusion in the Church. I would not say that the Latin Mass folk are against the Church and the teachings of Vatican II, but rather we are more cautious with it because of what many have done with it. The English Mass is still valid Mass, do doubt! But unfortunately its true splendor is being hidden by corrupt practices that are being followed. Practices that are personalizing the Mass into the Mass of the priest who says it! And this is not right! The Mass should be about Jesus and bringing us back to His sacrifice for us on the cross! Mass is not another Sunday chore that we must do because we are Catholic... but because we want nothing more than to be with Jesus at Calvary!As I have also posted before on the story of Pope St. Leo XIII, it is probably a good thing to be cautious with Vatican II since from the time it began it did fall into the "75-100 years" that the Devil requested in order to destroy the Church. And look at it now… Many of the faithful are leaving the Church, abandoning reverence in the Church, and giving into sinful practices that earlier in the Church's history, would never have been allowed. Even a buddy of mine recently alerted me to the fact that the real "Emily Rose" (Anneliese Michel) from the famous exorcism movie, had even been told by her demons that they were "very pleased with the recent Church council." This to me, makes me want to be very cautious, and stay even closer to the Latin Mass.
If you have never been to a Latin Mass before, I would encourage you to go. For some it takes some time to get used to, but for others, it can be love at first sight! I love the Latin Mass!
God love you all, Pray the Rosary Daily!
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